Me & My Sense Of Direction

“That is a nice horse,” says Aaron, driving.—And it was a nice horse. “You know, these streets used to be full of horses. What went wrong?”
“I don’t know” Gio, notices the horse, then thinks. “Maybe—after realizing coal supplies were running low, and some innovative, company-sponsored Mad Scientist discovered that there is actually coal (somewhere, some tiny amount) inside the horse’s body, and that it’s easier and cheaper to produce—companies (after hours of anti-environmentalist meetings, hours discussing company PR, and hours stress) decided it was time to ‘update their methods,’ (in the words of the CEOs) and start using horse-coal extracts.”
“Maybe.” Just maybe.
Joe—always helpful, always in the back seat--suddenly understands: “That’s where term ‘horse power’ comes from.”
“It’s true! Why else would ‘they’ call it that?”—and why else would they call it that?
“There’s no good reason to call it that,” says Aaron, warming up to the possibility of conspiracy . “Why couldn’t—instead of 150 HP, for example—make cars run at 30, 000 Mice Power, or something?”
“It makes no sense.” No sense at all.
“Or, if you want to really get into it, you could change it to say, 5 gazillion ameba power—like the Yen to the Euro.”
“Or just five elephant power, or half-a-T-rex power, instead of horse power.”
“Maybe (another maybe) before, a long time ago, different car companies had different ‘power currencies’—like different coinage for different countries—where Chevy had Ostrich Power (or OP) and Ford had ‘Lobo’ Power (or LP).”
“That would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?” Of course it would, Joe.
“But,” continues Gio, “after years of peace and prosperity between car dealers, the power-thirsty owner of one of the larger companies started taking the smaller companies under their rule, which angered their opposition.”
“Yes, go on.”
“Maybe (just maybe), conflict broke out between companies. Then, someone—seemingly out of nowhere—appeared to unite all car companies under one currency, an iron rule—Horse Power.”
“But that was only the first step.”
“Yes, only the first step. It was a big idea, with many details to work. For example, who is to choose how much a horse can carry….err, that is, produce the most coal.”
“What about skinny horses?” offered Joe.
“Or sick, or pregnant horses?” offered Aaron.
“There had to a horse—one horse—that all the car dealers of the world would acknowledge as the horse, and bow down to it. That was the only way the plan would work—one horse—one…err, beast, you could say.”
“Maybe.”
“We should get lost more often.”